For those who think the US military is spread thin...

latimes.com

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that about 200,000 U.S. troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving more than 2 million troops available for a war in Asia.

The US is nowhere near spread thin.............

it's just been another attempt by the dems/libs at spreading mis-information.



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[edit on 13-10-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Ferret the active strenght of US forces is 1.4 Million in all the services with 1.285 million made up as a reserve and national guard. So I think the actual figure of active front line troops would be around 800k which is not alot when you look at America's commitments worldwide. Obviously that figure would increase if you include reserves but the main problem would be resupplying any significant forces over a long period of time especially if supply routes were being attacked.

Originally posted by magicmushroom
Ferret the active strenght of US forces is 1.4 Million in all the services with 1.285 million made up as a reserve and national guard. So I think the actual figure of active front line troops would be around 800k which is not alot when you look at America's commitments worldwide. Obviously that figure would increase if you include reserves but the main problem would be resupplying any significant forces over a long period of time especially if supply routes were being attacked.

Absolutely correct, Magic.

Ferret, prosecuting a War requires a ratio of 5/1 support personnel to active Combat personnel. Don't ever make the assumption that every active duty member of the US Military is a Combatant; it just isn't the case, never has been, and never will be.

They fail to add all the troops that are around the world in those hundreds of US military bases.

Afghanistan: 20.000
Iraq: 200.000
Around the world: 100.000

So that keep to 320.000 soldiers mobilized. 320.000/1.400.000 = 22.85% of forces mobilised. So no, they are not spread thin in terms of numbers, but in terms of combattant, maybe.

If they plan to attack Iran or North Korea, they need a draft for sure.

[edit on 13-10-2006 by Vitchilo]

I don't think that man power is the problem. I don't think they have enough equipment ( tanks, bullets, guns or armour) to supply the men and women who would have to go to battle. The military needs to load up on supplies before they think of heading to asia. Make sure our troops are well armoured and supplied before they hit the ground.

Plumber, resupply/ re-equiping is one of the big headaches for modern armed forces, the technology is such that it takes alot of time to rebuild. I mean how long does it take to build a carrier or a nuke sub, I know in an all out war the country would be geared up eventually but there's a good chance you could run out of equipment quicker than you could replace it. And a major problem for America is the length of the supply lines, air lift has limited capacity so all the heavy stuff goes by sea and we all know how vunerable shipping lanes are.

Well first off you must ask the question: what qualifies people as "our troops?" Well if they are not acting on behalf of the people they are NOT in support of the people thus they are NOT "our army." Thus to me anyone who fights on behalf of bush and company are directly going against the peoples will (I dont CARE if its an order, you swore to serve the NATION not the ADMINISTRATIONS) and thus I do NOT have to support them because they are NOT "my army" or "my troops." Far as I am concerned they are a rouge army if they serve bush, now back to the subject of spreading an army thin.
Also you must factor in all the nation guard armories in the USA, that slices off a good chunk of people too, they are all SUPPORT roles not COMBAT roles. The reason why the military is horribily "underfunded" (HAH) and doesnt have what it needs is because of beurocrats and corporations. over $800 BILLION a year AVERAGE is spent on the military but only a tiny portion sees the pockets of the military personel. Most of it goes to corporations and special "projects" which have little to no results if you look up and at the track records. Then an even larger hunk goes "missing" from the pentagon each year... well we all know corporations took that so its not really "missing" now is it? I mean COME ON!!! millions, billions, trillions a year go missing and they dont even look into it!? Sweet mother of Josephene! We could feed the nation a couple thousand times with that money!
Tanks and bullets cost horrific amounts because VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY (goes on and on) few factories make them, lake city is the #1 ammo producer nation wide for the military. In fact there are so few I dont even know how they can make enough bullets to go to the practice ranges let alone start a war...
A tank will cost us an excess of $165 MILLION ONLY BECAUSE THERE ARE 2-3 FACTORIES NATION WIDE MAKING THEM! Now if you had 40 factories making them well the cost would drop DRASTICALLY! Corporations dont want that though... twice as much work to make the same amount of money... A missile will cost so much that you could make 4 schools and supply them for 10 years for the same reason. The reason why the USA was even able to come close to fighting the Nazi's in WW2 was because they had the ENTIRE nation mobilized for war and had every factory possible making things for war thus guns, bullets, tanks, and aircraft were VERY cheap to make in the long run.
The bu#e military is extremely thin, they only get enough rednecks a year to hold down parts of their forts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the others worldwide. So if they want another war they need to "steal" someone elses army or draft people like heck. Then again thanks to a new loophole a foreigner can join the US army and become a citizen if they agree to sign on for the amount of years the military specifies to them (amount of years unknown). So if they can get all the Mexicans flooding up here into bu#e uniforms then they wont have any trouble, all we need now is signs all over Mexico saying: JOIN THE US ARMY!! UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU!! Then in fine print nearly unreadable: be ready to murder civilians, torture civilians, commit war crimes against your own people and others, low pay, no benefits, any benefits you do have can be slashed at any time of our choosing, failure to complete contract will result in your deportation or just leaving your rotting corpse on the field and so on.

You can't win a war with hordes of naked screaming men - not in this age anyway.

So while we may have enough warm bodies on hand, they lack the training, the vehicles, the weapons, and the support, to be considered a viable fighting force.

When a vehicle gets damaged in Iraq, it's either scrapped or shipped home when it can't be repaired. Those vehicles should be getting refurbished as soon as they land, but we don't have the resources allocated to make that possible.

So the units based in America have a garage full of broken toys.

Also, new equipment is not being produced at a rapid enough pace to satisfy the needs of front-line troops, nevermind those in reserve. According to everything I've read, our front-line units are at the highest readiness levels, but if that's the case, why don't they have armored humvees and sufficient quantities of spare parts for their rifles?

I personally don't care if you want to believe the situation is peachy. The fact remains that the situation is not peachy. Reality has a way of biting you in the bum even if you disbelieve it - sometimes purely because you disbelieve it.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne Reality has a way of biting you in the bum even if you disbelieve it - sometimes purely because you disbelieve it.

You said it WyrdeOne. Tactics and technology allow the US to overcome huge numbers disadvantages, but only to a point. Sooner or later, volume begins to take its toll. For instance, we simply couldn't win a non-nuclear war with China. With the ability to mobilize nearly 18 million pairs of boots (2 mil active, 1 mil reserv, 15 mil militias), we can't shoot them faster than replacements arrive. Scenarios such as this are what prompted development of nuclear arms in the first place.